Cross my Heart, Hope to Die
by Danielle L.B
Summary: Before the fire, before the nightmares...17 year old Fred Krueger decides to invite his crush to the senior prom and in doing so, experiences the first and last heartbreak he'd ever encounter. Based on the TV episode
1. The Psycho, The Girl

**Title**: Cross My Heart, Hope to Die  
**Synopsis**: Fred Krueger decides to invite his crush to the senior prom and in doing so, experiences the first heartbreak of his 17 years of life.  
**Rated**: M for mature themes and coarse language.

_**Disclaimer  
**_This story was based on the _Freddy's Nightmares_ television show episode from the late 80s to the early 90s. I do not own Freddy Krueger, Howard, Denise Charlotte, Cindy, Or _A Nightmare on Elm Street_.

* * *

**The Psycho. The Girl. **

Denise Charlotte didn't even have to try. The girl could dress herself in a brown paper bag but to me, she'd still be beautiful. But you know, like everything, the unpopular kids don't get the privileges. They don't get noticed by the upper classmen. And you know, I was one of those kids-not the popular, the _unpopular. _Do I give a fuck? Well, not really. But do I give a fuck about Denise? Yes.

I laid eyes on Denise for the first time when she strolled into my English class, and I mean, I don't ordinarily pay attention to trivial details- but I did pay attention to her. It was like everything shuddered to a stop in the class, the world, and it was just her and myself. But she didn't notice me. She gave a flirtatious half wave to her latest heartthrob, potential man candy. In all probability, the only popular male she had yet to conquer. He was one of those I'm-playing-hard-to-get chumps, but you could tell he was real attracted to Denise. And who wouldn't be? She was the leggy blonde with deep eyes you'd never get bored drowning in, and lots of hair I wanted to run my fingers though. I can't help it, I'm a teenage boy who just wants to get laid. I doubt I ever will though, unless you count mom. Afterwards, I was taken out of her custody. Heck, I know I'm a sick fuck- they could of just flat out told me that. But no, they chose to use other words. _Mentally Disturbed. _That is a fancier way of describing a sick fuck. I mean, it's not like anyone has ever liked me.

_Shit. _I hate when I start the self pity. I try not to, but sometimes it just comes over me. That's when I turn to the knife. You probably don't have a clue what I'm thinking. You would never understand even if you tried. You just have to feel it- that sensation...that deadly good sensation of the sharp razor blade plunging into bare flesh. Watching the darkened red blood slowly and carefully seep out of the wound.

I bet if Denise knew, she'd think I was even crazier.

So it was that day she walked into my English class, took the seat in front of me where my eyes bored into her skull the entire period. It was either that or concentrate on the Shakespeare bullshit the teach' was feeding us.

I'm not stupid, I have my own life to be concerned of. Not some long dead guy that made up words and was proclaimed to be one of the greatest writers of all time. Greatest writer my ass.

Denise had been chewing on gum, she wasn't making it subtle either- but no one cared. Not even Mr. Higgins. The dickhead teacher who liked to play a little game called Make Fred Krueger's life a living hell. As long as it was Denise Charlotte popping away at the piece of fruity flavored gum, it was nothing to get worked up about.

I could smell the frigging scent of her perfume all the way to my desk. It wasn't too much, not a big cloud you couldn't even breath in...it was just, nice. Simple and damn nice.

I had watched as Denise turned around- _my way_. I yearned to run my hands through my hair, golden blonde, (not a bad colour at all, and hell, maybe Denise agreed) and give her one of those Elvis Presley grins, those grins that drive the ladies wild. I hate the guy, but he's definitely not famous for nothin'. The looks have got to play some role in his popularity. Well...I guess that makes me one ugly mother fu-

Never mind.

Instead of the blindsiding Elvis grin, in its place I did nothing. Just stared wide eyed and she smiled. I was practically _blinded. _Those teeth were fucking white. White pearls under perfect, luscious red lips. I coulda' grabbed her and pressed mine to hers. Wagged my tongue right through...

"Do you have a pencil I could borrow?" Munched on her gum some more, and grinned again.

I didn't. I didn't have a fricking pencil. I handed her my own. My one and my only pencil. Sure I'd need it to write notes for other classes, but I never bothered with notes anyway. I don't study for tests, I don't read over my notes. She deserved the pencil more than any other being.

"Hey...thanks. What's your name again?"

"Freddy..." I managed to say. She nodded a polite gesture, winked (along with my pounding heart) and turned back to face the front.

"My god, Dee..."I heard the catty yet deliciously wanted Marla Dimples. The name fit her like an old shoe. She had massive dimples along with perfectly defined cheekbones. On the contrary, she sure wasn't my kind of girl. She was a bitch. Pure and simple. A bitch that deserved a painful way to get buried six feet under. "Who will you be talking to next? The janitor?" Marla sneered my way.

"Why?" Denise asked. The innocent one of course. The one in her crowd that _didn't_ know about me. I felt my face burning red with pure wrath and maybe a pang of sorrow.

"It's Fred Krueger, he's _psycho_."

Denise glanced my way, then back to Marla. "Oh?"

"I'll tell ya later 'kay , babe?" Then Marla turned to face her boyfriend Trevor, in the desk next to hers. Yeah, the whore could pretend to be in love with Trevor Stoyles, but everyone knew she was fucking the captain of the basketball team. It was hardly a secret.

The English class episode had been a week ago. Since then, Denise hadn't more than glanced my way. I reasoned Marla had informed her about my reputation. In my frank opinion, Marla could stab herself to death, then rip her own heart out and eat it. Marla may have been good friends with Denise, but no one was as closely tied with Denise as Cindy. Cindy and Denise were like the stupid comparison of peanut butter and jelly, the sun and the moon. Both pretty, but both very different, both best friends. I hated Cindy. Didn't know how Denise could manage to have anything in common with the girl.

Of recent days, all anyone could give word of was the senior prom. You know, all the hype that goes with the clichéd school event. Girls talking about their chiffon prom dresses, secretly envious of each other, but trying to hide it. The guys bragging about who they planned to do after prom, not actually carrying about the prom itself.

It's stupid, all very stupid. But I still had an idea. An idea that I wasn't sure I could ever manage to go through with, being that the prom was in two weeks. Two crummy, long weeks.

I think I'm going to ask Denise Charlotte to the prom.


	2. If Crushes Didn't Hurt, It Wouldn't Be C...

**If Crushes Didn't Hurt; It Wouldn't Be Called A Crush**

"Denise...you know how prom is coming up..."

"Denise...I was wondering, if you didn't already have a date..." Somehow, rehearsing in the mirror didn't help for how it really what it really be like. Talking to my reflection didn't seem to be much of a confidence booster either.

"Would you like to go to prom..."

"You know Fred, maybe you should practice on _me_." A tall, gaunt faced and scrawny boy also known as Howard, pointed out. He was sprawled across the rigorously torn up mattress, which consisted of a long, thin cushion that caused the bed springs to gnaw at my back during slumber. It was just another of the random foster homes I was living in. With a person who didn't care if I lived or died.

I wasn't exactly sure now if you could qualify Howard as my friend. But he was really the only person I knew and hung around with. I'm not even sure how we met.

Howard pushed his oversized glasses upon his nose. I didn't know why he was always fidgeting with them. They just slowly slid down his long, thin nose anyway. "Denise is a popular girl Fred. You sure you're going to ask her and not chicken out?"

My stomach was full of nerves. I was definitely tense. Denise was a subject that made my heart writhe.

"Of course. Who do you fucking think I am?" I snapped. But the very mention of Denise was making me hyperventilate. "I've already got a plan of attack."

"Great. You're going to attack her? How is that ever going to get her to accept?"

It was a little thing called sarcasm that Howard just didn't seem to comprehend. "Never mind, Howard." I hissed under my breath. "Just never mind."

I tossed and turned on my mattress all night. It seemed Sundays ended too quickly, bringing on the following weekday. The first day of the week. The first day of school for a week, bringing you for more days afterwards of hellish high school torture.

It seemed no matter how much pep talk Howard forced me to sit through, it didn't prepare me for anything that was out for me. I knew life and I knew life well. It never worked out for the kids that sat quiet in the back of the classroom. If I was lucky, Denise would turn me down lightly. But yet to be rejected was still a healthy punch in the face.

That night, my thoughts. They wouldn't leave. They wouldn't leave me _alone. _I didn't fall asleep that night. Instead I repeated words in my head. Four letter words. Fuck. Love. I didn't know whether I fucking loved her, or hated her.

I didn't eat in the morning. Lack of sleep, lack of food. It was better to be nervous on an empty stomach. If I was nervous on a full stomach, I'd probably puke my guts up.

I met Howard at his locker. I never used my locker, but Howard used his frequently. It was a pain in the ass because it was so out of the way of everything. But Howard was in a bunch of extra credit classes and carried practically the entire library around with him.

"Nervous, Fred?"

I nodded, my eyes darting back and forth down the corridor. I could miss Denise at any chance. If I blinked, I might not get the damned opportunity.

"Just take a long hard breath of air and ask her." He made it sound easy. But nothing is easy in the world of females. I'm surprised I liked girls at all. I'd lived some of my life with a bitch of a mother who had been a nun. I knew the story. All the nuns that ran the convent told me. Otherwise I'd have been unknowing. This bitch, who had given birth to me was actually a bitch who had been raped. I was the product of it. Conceived by a freaking madman. Must be the reason I get those...urges.

But it's not important.

"There she is!" Howard hissed a little too loudly for my liking. Shoving those glasses up his nose and pointing a long, bony finger Denise's way. I turned around to look at her. Heck, this was no watching Denise walk as if in slow motion, her blonde curls bouncing as she laughed and chatted with her sidekick Cindy in tow. This was judgment day.

Cindy was saying something, and Denise was cracking up.

"Do it kiddo." Howard pushed me in her direction. I ground my teeth together and cracked some knuckles. I wasn't preparing for a fight, I was preparing to be shot down in front of everyone.

"Hey um, Denise?" I mumbled. I hadn't even said two words to the chick and now I was asking her to the prom. Denise's laughs faded and Cindy still carried on smirking.

"Uh yeah?" She asked, flipping blonde locks off her face and over her shoulder.

"Wannagotopromwithme?"

She frowned and laughed nervously.

"What?" Cindy jabbed her in her side and she slapped the girl's hand away.

"He wants to know if you'll go to prom with him." Howard cut in. God, I had been nervous but Howard was ruining it. Bastard.

Howard grinned, like he thought he was really helping me out by making me look like a wimp in front of the most desired girl in school. Denise looked stunned. I could of slapped her and she would of looked less surprised.

"Um..." Great. Fucking eh! "Can I get back to you on that one?" She asked weakly. Rubbing at a pale temple, I nodded finally and Cindy tugged at her arm and whisked Denise away.

"She probably was lying ya know." Howard elbowed me in my ribcage once the girls were out of earshot, and mumbling curse words towards him, I turned and banged my fist against the locker behind me.

"Violent urges!" Howard squealed. "Whatsa matter Fred-I asked her for you, didn't I?"

"And made me look like an inadequate retard in the process." No wonder I was a social outcast; I had people like Howard backing me up. We both knew Denise would probably _still_ reject me. Right now, her and Cindy were probably thinking up a nice way to do it.

"That's what friends are for."

I couldn't believe I, (or rather, Howard) had actually gone through with asking a girl of such high social standards to the social gala of the year. The one event girls and boys look forward to for years. Dreaming of their dates, their gowns, the dancing and partying and the partying _after_ prom. People like Denise Charlotte went with the stereotypical jocks, wearing over expensive dresses and having wild sex afterwards. People like Denise Charlotte did not go with people like myself or Howard, so to speak.

I thought the talk of asking Denise to the prom was just that; all talk. Something Howard and I would dream about- you know, fantasizing about things that are never capable of happening to us. Something that we'd always mention, but never get around to actually doing. Saying is one thing, doing it is another.

"She's gonna say no, Freddy." Howard mustered sympathetically, flinging a spindly arm around my shoulders. Even the biggest nerd at school thought that I was a lost and utterly hopeless cause.

Well, school did not matter to me. It never had, it never would. I had bigger plans for the people who had made me their scapegoat for the better years of their lives. _Much_ bigger plans.

"Well _you_ are the one who asked her for me." I snarled. If anyone was going to tell me my chances were irrevocable, it wouldn't be Howard-who couldn't get a girl even if he dressed up as Elvis and started performing a pelvic thrust. "Maybe it wasn't in my intentions that I was going to ask her at all!"

He mumbled something that sounded awfully like "sorry".Howard backed down then. He knew he was too blame, but it was too late to be sorry. Now all we had left was to wait for what was to come.


	3. Black Tuxedo, White Corsage

**Black tuxedo, White Corsage.**

A phone ringing in the quiet of the atmosphere on a Friday night causes great impact on a house full of losers. My foster father, Maurice Dewey, local farmer and resident drunk liked to think he was a lady's man, but the single shrill of a telephone had him puzzled. Why would anyone be calling for us? It wasn't the first Friday night he had spent killing spare time getting himself good and loaded. We lived on the secluded outskirts of Springwood and sometimes, Dewey would chip in cash to pick up groceries.

The phone had commenced on its second ring by now.

Third.

Fourth.

Dewey ran a dirt stained hand through his greasy mounds of dark hair. "You gonna answer that Fred-dy." His gaze wavered. Flinching, I grasped the phone tightly and brought it to my ear.

Curtly, I greeted the caller.

"Hi, Fred?"

My heart stopped cold. I felt myself begin to perspire. I had engraved that voice deep inside my gray matter. Denise was calling...Me-Freddy-fucking-Krueger? My breathing instantaneously ran short.

"Hi." I repeated.

"Do you know who this is?"

_Yes_.

"Uh, I don't think so." I grunted.

"It's Denise, Denise _Charlotte_." I heard the heinous sounds of a girl's chortle, shuffling in the background and muffled conversation.

Brilliant. Called from the hellish depths of a teenage slumber party. "I'm uh, callin' about...the prom."

There was silence from my end. "Oh?" I had the mentality of a five year old and the wit of a man on his deathbed.

"And the answer is, _yes_."  
It took several moments before her words registered. "Oh?" Then I reconsidered. "Oh."

"Yeah. So...I'll see you at school Monday?"

The prom was one doggone week away.

"Uh, yeah."

_Yeah_, _oh. _Had I uttered any other syllable? I had surpassed my opportune moment to wow Denise with my charm. But, charm I was greatly lacking.

"Who was that?" Dewey slurred. I glanced at the thirteenth beer of the night gripped in his bony hand and suppressed the urge to roll my eyes.

"Someone from school."

_Denise said yes.  
_

"Who'd be calling for you?" He struggled to pull himself off the dying sofa. That remark hadn't hit me where it hurt, I was use to a lot of shit from Howard Dewey.

He stumbled towards me. "I don't like when you fuck around with me."

_Denise said yes. _

This time I did roll my eyes. "Get over it..._Dewey_." I spat. I was too fervent right now to care for some belt lashes. And indeed, I saw him swipe for the leather belt looped around his thin waist and I made a beeline for my bedroom.

I was learning to repel the pain. Welcome the pain. Too many beatings in the past parents had prepared me for the worst, and the worst I had yet to see.

In the dim light of my enclosed bedroom, I flung my t-shirt to an abandoned corner and slipped my prime razor blade, its tip encrusted with dried serum, from my underwear drawer. I sank into the fading bed sheets. Ever so carefully, I allowed the blade to slowly graze my bare chest. Man, that just felt so _good. _If jacking off wasn't the way to cure the hardness, the knives would.

_Denise said yes._

When I had invited Denise to prom, I hadn't really stopped to consider that I would have to purchase a tuxedo and corsage for Denise. I wasn't even sure if I'd have that sort of money to spend. I knew Denise wasn't wealthy herself, but I wanted to impress her and I had never felt the need to impress any girl before in my life. I mean, she was a girl. Just a _girl_.

That was making me start to wet myself. A girl...not just any girl, Denise Charlotte with her supple breasts and voluptuous curves. Why had she said yes to me? She was kidding not only herself if she had turned down every other ass who'd asked her before me. That just didn't _happen._ This was too fucked up.

I called Howard and told him he was coming out with me to pick something to wear for prom.

"She said yes?" He had howled into the phone, piercing my ear with a voice that sounded as if it still hadn't struck adolescent puberty.

"Fuck yeah." I had replied, acting calm and collected; as if I'd known she would have said yes all along.

"Aww Fredster, you are _the_ man." Howard spoke in awe. In awe of me? Well, I hadn't exactly seen myself as a real stud. "You are going to the prom-with Denise Charlotte nonetheless!"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever."

_She had said yes. Could a guy luck out anymore?_

"You think prom night you'll lose your virginity to her?" Virginity. _Virginity._ What a curse on humanity, to be a male virgin at 17 years of age. But a female, something seemed even better when a girl was still intact. I wanted to be the man to deflower Denise Charlotte.

"What makes you think I'm still a virgin?"

Howard and I had decided on a nearby tuxedo rental shop. Why waste a hundred bucks on a suit I'd wear once? They had a vast variety of different styles of tuxedos and suits. I'd really only thought they sold one type and one type only. The standard black unit with the white collared shirt underneath. But no, there were ruffles and colors of oranges and blues...

"So what's the occasion?" The old salesclerk with the name tag reading Sam, asked us as we browsed through several racks of white tuxedos. I hated shopping and it was a chore I always despised. But this was one day I could care less. Because every fucking idiot that had made me their target was going to pick their jaw off the floor when they saw me strut arm and arm into the prom with Denise Charlotte.

"Prom." I murmured rigidly. You know, give the dick the subtle brush off and fuck off.

"Ooh." Sam's eyes twinkled. "Got some special date?" I could see the glimmer in Howard's eyes dim. I guess the guy felt a little out of the loop. Hadn't been laid, hadn't been kissed, hadn't even been spoken to by a girl other then his mother, the gold digger.

Had Howard ever liked a girl at all? Probably, after all-we all keep dirty laundry.

I grunted a sound that could either be deciphered as a yes or no.

"Need any help picking out a little something?"

I plucked a black tux from its rack. "No." I replied bluntly and turned my back to him.

"How's this one?" I held it up to my body.

"Handsome." Howard nodded. That dull glaze in the eyes had returned behind his horn rimmed glasses. "Fred?"

"What?"

"Do you…do you think maybe Cindy Prescott, would go to the prom with me?" He nervously rubbed his Adam's apple nonchalantly. Howard had the hots for Denise's best friend? The chances of Cindy ever accepting a prom invite from Howard was slim to none. Heck, Denise saying yes to me was a miracle in itself, with the exception I _have _no God.

At the first moment, I hadn't had the heart to let down Howard. But then I remembered.

I don't have a heart.

"She's going with John Malcolm the third." I mumbled. Howard cast a longing look to the tuxedo in my arms and his entire body sighed.

With a tuxedo rental and a bottle of cheap cologne in Howard's station wagon, we had driven to the nearest floral boutique and picked up a white (because white goes with _everything_, the owner had gushed) corsage for Denise that was now stored in Howard's refrigerator. I hadn't wanted to take any chances with Dewey in the house.

Tracing over the faded scars along my body that night, I still pondered. Why did I care about Dense Charlotte? Why did I care about cologne, and prom? Was it because I'd grown up being angry at the world, always looking out for myself and never acting like just a kid? Prom was my chance to maybe just forget the violent dreams, forget Dewey's hatred for me.

But there was one thing I wondered above all others; why the hell had Denise said yes?


End file.
